Having the highest-rated news show on cable will get you a free pass on a lot of stuff, but not, apparently, blaming an adolescent kidnapping victim for his own abduction.

Home-improvement chain Lowe's has pulled its advertising from The O'Reilly Factor following comments host Bill O'Reilly made about Shawn Hornbeck, the 15-year-old Missouri boy who recently returned to his parents after four years in captivity.

On Jan. 15, during a segment with fellow FNC anchor Greta Van Susteren, O'Reilly insisted that Hornbeck failed to seize opportunities to escape his captor because "there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances." Over Van Susteren's protests, O'Reilly elaborated: "The situation here, for this kid, looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his 'old' parents. He didn't have to go to school, he could run around and do whatever he wanted."

Despite subsequent developments in the case—such as the revelation that Hornbeck participated in the capture of another youth—Lowe's did not take kindly to O'Reilly's analysis. According to News Hounds, a watchdog website that monitors Fox News Channel, viewers who complained to the retailer about its financial support of The O'Reilly Factor got e-mails back notifying them that Lowe's had pulled its ads as of Jan. 25.

A Fox News spokeswoman confirms the pullout, but says Lowe's advertising had simply been shifted to other programs on the network, not canceled. "To my knowledge, no other advertisers have taken similar action," she adds.

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